The Verge

The Pixel Tablet displaying the new Home Controls screensaver. | Photo by Jennifer Pattison Tuohy / The Verge A new Home Controls screensaver in Android 15 turns your tablet or phone into a smart home dashboard, where you can control devices with a single tap. The interactive screensaver does away with the need to unlock your device or tap a shortcut button, making controlling your connected lights or cameras much quicker.The feature is live now on the Google Pixel Tablet and Pixel phones running Android 15 and should be available on more devices soon.The screensaver appears when your device is docked or connected to a charger. It works with the Google Home app and displays your Favorites tab, which can be customized to show your most used devices, such as individual smart lights, thermostats, and security camera feeds. The tab also has... Continue reading...

Illustration by Cath Virginia / The Verge | Photo from Getty Images The FIDO Alliance, the organization that's helping shepherd passkey adoption, announced a draft of new specifications that would let users securely move their passkeys across different password managers.Passkeys are great - it's nice to be able to log in to apps and websites without entering a password. But there hasn't been a standard protocol for transferring your passkeys across password managers. The new specifications, the Credential Exchange Protocol (CXP) and Credential Exchange Format (CXF), are designed to fill that gap.The FIDO Alliance's Credential Provider Special Interest Group," which includes representatives from 1Password, Apple, Bitwarden, Google, Microsoft, Okta, and more, collaborated on the specifications. The new... Continue reading...

Illustration: The Verge Meta is adding an activity status" to Threads so that you can see who's actively online as you're scrolling your feed. In a post, Threads boss Adam Mosseri pitches it as a way to help you find others to engage with in real-time." The activity status will show up next to your profile picture in the feed and on your profile, based on screenshots Mosseri shared. Screenshot by Jay Peters / The Verge A screenshot of Adam Mosseri's post about the feature on Threads - look for the green dots. Fortunately, if you don't want people to know when you're online, you don't have to share that. Only people who have activity status turned on will be able to see when you're online, and you can turn this off within your... Continue reading...

Photo: Jakub Porzycki / NurPhoto via Getty Images The New York Times has demanded that AI search engine startup Perplexity stop using content from its site in a cease and desist letter sent to the company, reports The Wall Street Journal. The Times, which is currently suing OpenAI and Microsoft over allegedly illegally training models on its content, says the startup has been using its content without permission, a claim made earlier this year by Forbes and Conde Nast.The Journal included this passage from the letter:

Illustration by William Joel / The Verge The video game voice actor strike could be over soon. SAG-AFTRA, which negotiates the interactive media agreement that governs video game performances, has announced that negotiations on the agreement will resume on Wednesday, October 23rd.SAG-AFTRA and members of the interactive media bargaining group - which includes video game companies like Activision, Insomniac Games, Take Two, Electronic Arts, and more - had been negotiating a new interactive media agreement for almost two years. In September of last year, SAG-AFTRA members voted for strike authorization, warning that a strike would be forthcoming if the two parties could not reach a deal. This summer, a strike was formally authorized and SAG-AFTRA members began picketing on July... Continue reading...

The Nuio Flow keyboard features a split design form factor for optimal hand positioning." | Image: Nuio A new company called Nuio, founded by two brothers with backgrounds in design and manufacturing, is rethinking desk accessories with the goal of making our computers more comfortable to use. It's debuting today with a collection of magnetic peripherals called Flow that's centered around a wireless split keyboard, all designed to make it easier to find your perfect ergonomic layout, even if that's constantly changing throughout the day.Tom Wilson, the CEO of Nuio (a combination of new and I/O), previously worked at companies including Apple, Google, and Frog Design, while Greg Wilson, the company's CMO, spent years at Frog Design and the creative agency Digitas. The brothers cofounded Nuio with the goal of improving how we physically... Continue reading...

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Android 15 is now rolling out to Pixel devices, bringing them new privacy features, security tools, and improvements for foldables and tablets. The operating system first launched last month through the Android Open Source Project, but at the time, it wasn't yet available on Pixel phones and tablets - or other major Android devices. Google announced today that it's finally coming to Pixels alongside a series of Pixel feature drops.One major new feature in Android 15 is the ability to make a private space" for apps you might want to keep hidden from other people who get ahold of your phone. (Google gives the examples of social, dating, or banking apps.) Apps you put in the private space won't show up in your recent apps, notifications,... Continue reading...

The Anbernic RG P01 is the company's first wireless controller includes a six-axis gyroscope for playing Switch games that support motion controls. | Screenshot: YouTube Anbernic is expanding its extensive lineup of handheld consoles to include wireless controllers with the reveal of its new RG P01, which features Hall effect triggers and joysticks with minimal drift," according to the company.The Anbernic RG P01 features an Xbox-style Y, B, A, and X button layout that can be switched to a Nintendo-style layout through software, but it's not yet known if reconfiguring the controller is done through a desktop or mobile app.The controller is compatible with PCs, the Nintendo Switch, Steam devices, iOS, and Android; wireless connectivity includes support for Bluetooth 5.3 as well as a 2.4GHz connection for reduced lag. Anbernic hasn't confirmed if a 2.4GHz USB dongle is included for gaming devices that... Continue reading...

Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge Spotify is rolling out the beta test of music videos to 85 additional markets globally, allowing Premium subscribers to watch a limited catalog" of videos from artists like Charlie XCX, Doja Cat, Ed Sheeran, Fontaines D.C., LISA, and more.However, that list of available areas doesn't include the US yet, and it's unclear when it will reach us here. As with all of our features, availability can vary across markets and tiers," Spotify spokesperson Brittany Le Roy said in a statement to The Verge. Music videos on Spotify are still in beta and we look forward to bringing it to even more users across more markets, including the US, in the future."With the wider rollout, Spotify is also adding the ability to instantly switch between audio... Continue reading...

Image: Tom Warren / The Verge Microsoft's discless Xbox Series X goes on sale today, and while it looks slightly different on the outside thanks to a white paint job and the lack of a disc drive, inside, it has been redesigned. Microsoft has redesigned the motherboard on the white Xbox Series X and new 2TB models, shrunk the system-on-a-chip (SoC) down to 6nm, and switched to a new cooling solution.YouTuber Austin Evans spotted the changes in a teardown of the new models and reported that the shrunken chip allows the new Xbox Series X models to run around 10 watts less than the original model at idle. Image: Austin Evans (YouTube) The new Xbox Series X motherboard has been heavily redesigned. Image: Austin Evans (YouTube) ... Continue reading...

Electrify America is one of several charging networks included in Nissan's offering. | Image: Nissan Nissan is starting up an electric vehicle charging network that lets Ariya SUV owners connect and pay at participating third-party charging stations using the MyNissan app. The new Nissan Energy Charge Network" consists of 90,000 fast chargers" in the US from partner companies Electrify America, Shell Recharge, ChargePoint, and EVgo. Starting in November, Ariya owners can use a stored payment method in their MyNissan app to start and pay for a charging session with one tap at a station.Nissan also says it will make available" Tesla Supercharger-compatible NACS adapters for Ariya owners later this year. Some companies like Kia, Ford, and Rivian will or have been providing the adapter for free, while others like GM will sell one for a... Continue reading...

An eBay listing that's no longer active included packaging photos of the 12th-gen Kindle Paperwhite e-reader. | Image: Reddit A handful of specs for the 12th-gen Amazon Kindle Paperwhite have leaked via an eBay listing, which shared images of the new e-reader's packaging before it was pulled, reports Good e-Reader. Those images, still available on Reddit, reveal a slightly larger seven-inch E Ink screen, up from 6.8 inches on the previous model.Other features of the 12th-gen Kindle Paperwhite include screen lighting that can be adjusted between warm and cool color temperatures, an IPX8 waterproof rating allowing the e-reader to survive a dunking to depths of two meters for a full hour, screensaver ads that can be removed for a fee, and weeks of battery life."Details on what processor the e-reader is using, how much memory is included, and its wireless... Continue reading...

Illustration: The Verge Google plans to buy electricity from next-generation nuclear reactors. It announced the deal yesterday, which it says is the world's first corporate agreement to purchase electricity from advanced small modular reactors (SMRs) that are still under development.Google inked the deal with engineering company Kairos Power, which plans to get its first SMR up and running by 2030. Google agreed to purchase electricity from multiple" reactors that would be built through 2035.Google needs a lot more clean energy to meet its climate goals while pursuing its AI ambitions. New nuclear technologies are still unproven at scale, but the hope is that they can provide carbon pollution-free electricity while solving some of the problems that come... Continue reading...

Sonos apparently believes its mobile app has reached a good enough place to resume product launches: today the company has announced the Arc Ultra and Sub 4. The $999 Arc Ultra is a more powerful take on the original Arc, and it's the first Sonos product to feature unique transducer technology from Mayht, a startup that Sonos acquired in 2022. Sonos refers to this as Sound Motion" and says it allows the Arc Ultra to produce richer, even more immersive sound than the original.The company is touting Sound Motion as one of the most significant breakthroughs in audio engineering in nearly 100 years" and says it unlocks greater clarity, depth, and balance than ever before possible from a soundbar this sleek."The Arc Ultra has fourteen... Continue reading...

Image: Roku Roku is making your TV more like a surveillance center. It's rolling out a carousel of all your Roku security camera feeds that will automatically rotate when cameras detect activity or during timed intervals.In addition to this update, Roku is expanding TV notifications to include alerts from all your cameras - not just your video doorbell. This can give you a heads-up when your baby's waking up in another room or if your dog is getting into trouble outside. You don't have to turn on the notifications if you don't want to, as I'd imagine they'd get pretty distracting while you're immersed in a show or movie. Image: Roku These new features will roll out this winter, and they're compatible with all Roku cameras and... Continue reading...

Image: Google / The Verge Google Shopping is rolling out a personalized feed that shows you a stream of products you might like. The new feature, which is coming to mobile devices first, shows up when you head to shopping.google.com.At the top of the page, you'll see a carousel of products you've recently shopped for, allowing you to jump back into your search. But once you scroll down, Google will surface recommended products and in-line videos related to items you might be interested in. Google will use your recent searches and YouTube videos to personalize your feed. GIF: Google Google's personalized feed shows recommended products and related videos. If you come across something in your feed that you don't like, you can hit the... Continue reading...

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge YouTube is getting a bunch of small but handy new features, like the ability to more finely tune your playback speed, new tools to collaborate on playlists, a sleep timer, and more.For me, a person who has written multiple times about video playback speeds, YouTube's new speed controls are definitely the highlight. With the updated controls, you can select playback speeds in .05 increments instead of .25 increments, giving you a lot more options for exactly how fast or slow you want to watch a video. Playback speed is still capped at 2x - maybe someday it'll get bumped up higher than that.The upgrades to playlists sound useful, too. You'll be able to build collaborative playlists by sharing a link (or, in a feature coming soon" to... Continue reading...

The world we live in is, in so many ways, 20 years old. Let's go back and see how we got here. Continue reading...

The Wired Floodlight Camera provides many of the same features as Arlo's wireless alternative for a lower price. | Image: Arlo Arlo is releasing a new floodlight security camera that connects directly to your home's Wi-Fi and power source. That allows the Arlo Wired Floodlight Camera to monitor and illuminate outdoor spaces 24/7 without interruption, unlike battery-powered security systems.This is Arlo's first hardwired floodlight camera, and it's available to buy on the company's website now for $149.99. Wired security systems are harder to install than battery-powered alternatives, but Arlo says its first floodlight system features a simple, hardwired DIY installation." It's also more affordable than Arlo's $250 wireless Pro 3 Floodlight Cam, which can be set up as either a wireless or hardwired system.In fact, the Wired Floodlight Camera shares many of the... Continue reading...

Photo by Tom Warren / The Verge Microsoft has started selling a discless version of its Xbox Series X console today, in the same white paint job as the smaller Xbox Series S. The only change over the carbon black exterior of the original Xbox Series X is that this new white model doesn't include a disc drive.There's no option to add a disc drive to this white model either, so you'll have to be confident you're happy playing digital games or titles from Xbox Game Pass before purchasing this $449.99 variant.Microsoft hasn't changed the rear ports either, so there's two USB-A ports, a HDMI 2.1 port to connect to your TV or monitor, an Ethernet port, and the storage expansion slot at the rear of the console. At the front there's a single USB-A port, alongside the pair... Continue reading...

Photo: Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Is it possible for a phone to have pretty privilege"? Mediocre features and functionality be damned, the original Motorola Razr V3 and its successors dominated the US cellphone market for four years following its 2004 release - up to and including the iPhone's introduction in 2007 - seemingly on vibes and aesthetics alone. Not to glamorize consumerism or anything, but I miss it terribly.I was 11 years old when the Razr launched and probably among the first generation of kiddies that begged their parents to buy them a cellphone. We weren't really the target demographic before that - cellphones had mostly been bulky, boring things primarily for working adults. SMS texting had just become something that everyone did day-to-day, and mobile... Continue reading...

For a couple of years, there was nothing on the internet so simultaneously thrilling and terrifying as having your website hit the front page of Digg. Thousands of people, maybe tens of thousands, would immediately come to your site - and there's a good chance they'd crash it in the process. Hundreds of commenters would debate the merits of whatever you'd created or published, pick fights with you and each other about it, and make you feel like the internet's main character. At least for a few minutes, until something bigger and newer and more controversial hit Digg.com and everyone moved on.In its early days, Digg was something like the homepage of the internet. Any user could submit a link, and then any other user could either promote... Continue reading...

Image: Kristen Radtke / The Verge Flipping through your high school scrapbook is a humbling experience. There's a lot to reckon with - including braces and bootcut jeans, in my case - and you get a sense of what kinds of moments you thought were worth preserving. Apparently, a great deal of funny things happened to my friends and me as we loafed around a suburban coffee shop avoiding homework. Looking through those pages, I can find plenty of documentation of life as we waited for our teammates to finish their tennis matches and turned the communal couch at Caribou Coffee into our own private rec room. But only a few pages later, the photos abruptly stop.This was all in 2003, my senior year of high school. (Please don't do that math.) I carried around disposable cameras... Continue reading...

Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge, Getty Images The Mojave Desert is not typically a place for a car race, but these were not your typical cars, and this was not your typical race. The course was 150 miles of rocks, loose dirt, and narrow switchbacks - harrowing terrain even for the most rugged vehicles. The obvious goal: be the first to cross the finish line without crashing, flipping over, or catching fire. The prize was $1 million.The participants looked straight out of Mad Max: military-grade Humvees, dune buggies, motorcycles, and a particularly gnarly-looking Acura SUV. No drivers with mohawks and shoulder pads, unfortunately. No drivers at all. This was the DARPA Grand Challenge - the world's first robot car race.It was March 13th, 2004, a watershed moment in autonomous... Continue reading...

Image: Kristen Radtke / The Verge In fashion, it's said that trends return every 20 years. But it seems technology has started to repeat itself at the same cadence, too. Can you identify what things happened in 2004, 2024, or in some cases, both?Microsoft loses its antitrust case in EuropeYear: 2004Two decades ago, the EU handed down a fine of over $600 million for not offering versions of Windows that did not come with Windows Media Player preinstalled. Microsoft still has antitrust problems in Europe at the moment, and last year, the EU attempted to block the company's acquisition of video game maker Activision Blizzard. But Microsoft has paid no fines this year... so far.Motorola releases a new Razr phoneYear: BothThe very first Razr, called the Motorola Razr V3,... Continue reading...

Before a podcast was a podcast," it was... well, it wasn't really much of anything. A few of the early believers called them audio blogs," and the journalist often credited with coining the term podcast" also offered GuerillaMedia" as an alternative in the very same article. (And actually, there's plenty of debate over exactly who coined the term and when. The history of the podcast is more contentious than you'd think.)It was in 2004, though, that many of the earliest names in on-demand audio began to smush iPod" and broadcast" into the word we've come to know as the way we all download and listen to shows now. In the 20 years since podcasts became a thing, they've changed dramatically - the earliest pods were mostly just dudes... Continue reading...

Image: NetEase The rumors are true, the Destiny franchise is heading to mobile devices soon. Destiny: Rising is a new free-to-play mobile sci-fi RPG shooter that includes a number of playable hero characters, a shared world, and PvE and PvP modes all set in Bungie's Destiny universe.China-based NetEase Games has developed Destiny: Rising, after announcing a partnership with Bungie and a $100 million investment into the studio in 2018. Destiny: Rising will be set in an alternative Destiny timeline, exploring the post-Dark Age era of the universe and lore before the Tower existed and before the emergence of Guardians. Image: NetEase Destiny: Rising will be set in the Destiny universe. NetEase is licensing the Destiny brand from... Continue reading...

Image: Devolver Digital After the launch of Gris, a beautiful game exploring grief, the team at Nomada Studio in Barcelona needed a long break. They spent around half a year not even thinking about what was next, avoiding words like Unity" or sequel." Eventually, director Conrad Roset, who became a parent during that time, came up with the idea of a similar experience that would introduce a new companion, allowing players to connect with and care for another character.I told him, no problem, as long as it's not a four-legged animal, you can do whatever you want," says lead producer Roger Mendoza, noting that animating critters with lots of legs can be quite painful." But the director was able to make the case for a game called Neva about a young woman who... Continue reading...

Photo by Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images Microsoft is promoting Rare studio lead Craig Duncan to the head of Xbox Game Studios, following the retirement of Alan Hartman. The change of leadership comes less than a year after Hartman took on the head of Xbox Game Studios role after Matt Booty was promoted to an expanded president of game content and studios position.In an email to Xbox employees today, seen by The Verge, Booty shared that Hartman is retiring at the end of November after more than 30 years at Microsoft. Hartman originally started at Microsoft inside the CD-ROM group in 1988, before working on Age of Empires, Brute Force, and studio head of Digital Anvil. He also helped found Turn 10, the home of Forza Motorsport.Rare studio chief Craig Duncan will take over the... Continue reading...

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge From a AI video model to new features for Creative Cloud apps, here's everything announced at this year's Adobe Max conference. Continue reading...

Image: Fujifilm Even as it keeps working to catch up with demand for the massively popular X100VI, Fujifilm has been on a steady cadence of releasing new cameras. The X-T50 was announced in May, and it was the first to feature a physical dial for switching between the company's signature film simulations. That dial is carrying forward to the new, budget-tier X-M5 that Fujifilm is announcing today.The X-M5 is priced at $799.95 and is an affordable gateway into the company's interchangeable lens mirrorless camera lineup.. Fujifilm is positioning it as a lightweight camera ideal for everyday shooting and emerging content creators" who want to vlog with it - despite a lack of in-body image stabilization (IBIS). At 13 ounces (355 grams), the X-M5 is the... Continue reading...

Photo illustration by The Verge / Photo: Duolingo The cofounder of the world's largest education app thinks AI and gamification can supercharge language learning. Continue reading...

Frame.io V4 aims to make collaborating on large projects much easier by removing the need to jump between different apps. | Image:Adobe The latest version of Frame.io, Adobe's review and collaboration platform for Video and photography, is rolling today, making it easier to manage sprawling creative projects in a single app. Available for all users on web, iPhone, and iPad, Frame.io V4 is the biggest update to the platform since it was launched in 2015, according to Adobe, and adds new tagging and collaboration features that make it feel more like a workflow management tool, such as Trello and Asana.It includes the metadata" tagging model that was introduced in beta earlier this year, which allows users to assign custom tags like media type, assignee, due date, social media platform, and more to their files, making them easier to manage and review. Projects can also be... Continue reading...

Adobe's Firefly Video Model can generate a range of styles, including realism' (as pictured). | Image: Adobe Adobe is making the jump into generative AI video. The company's Firefly Video Model, which has been teased since earlier this year, is launching today across a handful of new tools, including some right inside Premiere Pro that will allow creatives to extend footage and generate video from still images and text prompts.The first tool - Generative Extend - is launching in beta for Premiere Pro. It can be used to extend the end or beginning of footage that's slightly too short, or make adjustments mid-shot, such as to correct shifting eye-lines or unexpected movement.Clips can only be extended by two seconds, so Generative Extend is only really suitable for small tweaks, but that could replace the need to retake footage to correct tiny... Continue reading...

Image: the Internet Archive The Internet Archive is back online in a read-only state after a cyberattack brought down the digital library and Wayback Machine last week. A data breach and DDoS attack kicked the site offline on October 9th, with a user authentication database containing 31 million unique records also stolen in recent weeks.The Internet Archive is now back online in a provisional, read-only manner," according to founder Brewster Kahle. Safe to resume but might need further maintenance, in which case it will be suspended again."While you can access the Wayback Machine to search 916 billion web pages that have been archived over time, you can't currently capture an existing web page into the archive. Kahle and team have gradually been restoring A... Continue reading...

Image: The Verge Both T-Mobile and AT&T have plans to release their first devices soon that run on RedCap, a 5G specification that is tooled for Internet of Things devices, according to Fierce Wireless.What is RedCap? Great question! Also called reduced capability" or NR-Light, RedCap is a low-bandwidth version of 5G that's expected to make certain devices, like wearables, sensors, or surveillance cameras simpler and more power efficient, according to an Oracle document. That could mean cheaper cellular-connected smartwatches, XR glasses, or other portable products that don't need high-powered antennas and fast throughput last longer on a charge.AT&T, which began testing the spec on its own network early this year, reportedly plans to release its... Continue reading...

An Optimus robot at the We, Robot event. | Screenshot: Tesla We, Robot livestream Tesla made sure its Optimus robots were a big part of its extravagant, in-person Cybercab reveal last week. The robots mingled with the crowd, served drinks to and played games with guests, and danced inside a gazebo. Seemingly most surprisingly, they could even talk. But it was mostly just a show.It's obvious when you watch the videos from the event, of course. If Optimus really was a fully autonomous machine that could immediately react to verbal and visual cues while talking, one-on-one, to human beings in a dimly lit crowd, that would be mind-blowing.

Screenshot: SpaceX livestream SpaceX's Starship spacecraft splashed down in the Indian Ocean a little over an hour after its 8:25AM ET launch from South Texas. Almost seven minutes following liftoff, the Super Heavy booster returned to its launchpad, where the launch tower caught it using arms that SpaceX has nicknamed the chopsticks."The remarkable catch was a first for SpaceX and an important step toward making the Super Heavy booster a fully reusable launch system just like SpaceX's Falcon 9 rockets. The booster completed a similar set of maneuvers to today's during its previous flight test in June, when it splashed down in the Gulf of Mexico, instead. GIF: SpaceX Starship livestream. SpaceX's South Texas launch tower catches the Super... Continue reading...